Chemistry innovation in resource efficiency

How can we provide a good quality of life for all the 9.5 billion people on the Earth in 2050 with the resources of one planet? This is the challenge facing society and will mean huge changes in business models. Increased resource efficiency will rely more and more on the skills of chemists.

Current trends suggest that by 2050, the global population will reach 9.5 billion; in that time span, the middle class is expected to increase by 3 billion, all of whom will aspire to the multitude of labour-saving gadgets that seem crucial to a modern lifestyle (1). Delivering this lifestyle, and the huge savings in embodied and consumed energy required to limit climate change, will require a step change in material efficiency (2). The products and infrastructure that enable our globalised, connected society rely on a largely linear use of natural resources, with limited recycling and reuse of materials. (The UK economy is approximately 75% linear but relies increasingly on imports). Sustainable use of materials is a must.

Materials that are used in vast quantities but that have low energy intensity in production (such as steel and cement) need to have longer in-use lifetimes, particularly given demand for steel is set to rise by 80% between 2010 and 2030 (3). Low abundance materials won at great energy and environmental cost (such as scarce metals) need to be minimised in use and retained in the material economy. For example it takes two million tonnes of solid waste, 691,000 litres of water, and 141 kilograms of cyanide to produce a single kilogram of gold (4). Even for fairly abundant materials such as aluminium, the case for recycling, reuse, or remanufacturing is strong. Avoiding extraction of virgin materials will help manage costs and availability; extraction is predicted to account for 40% of the world’s energy use by 2050 (5). Using renewable materials to replace non-renewable resources is also a productive strategy.

The need for resource efficiency in a world of rising material and energy cost and increasing supply risk will drive changes in business models. Resource extraction companies will evolve into resource management businesses and obtain materials from waste streams as well as virgin sources. In many cases the concentration of key resources is already higher in the former than the latter (such as gold in computer scrap and platinum in road sweepings). Suppliers of energy will increasingly become providers of the services that this energy enables, with a focus on efficiency.

What a waste! A typical mobile phone contains about 40 different elements, some of which are mined at great environmental cost. A change in mindset is required such that device design minimises such costs and allows reuse and recycling of the materials used.
Credit:Bakalusha/Shutterstock

Manufacturing businesses will shift from making products to managing cycles of materials. This will be driven by retailers and brand owners selling services rather than objects.Waste management companies will exploit their reverse logistics capability and control of material flows to become material managers and key resource providers.

These circular economy business models are already being adopted by forward thinking companies (6). Wider adoption and greater impact will be achieved once chemical scientists and engineers overcome technical hurdles to reducing, replacing, recycling, and remanufacturing materials. Doing this will require a change in mindset: a move away from optimising individual products to considering the whole life cycle of the materials that drive our economy. Perhaps the biggest challenge for molecular scientists is the shift from developing process and products to providing services. As chemists we are trained to make pure materials. Our business models are simple (“sell more of these pure materials”). Yet, customers ultimately buy what a material does, not what it is. The key to a resource-efficient economy is to deliver desired effects as efficiently as possible.

Chemistry-using industries are becoming very aware of the issue around long-term availability of resources. Work at Chemistry Innovation Knowledge Transfer Network (CIKTN) (7) since 2008 has sought to raise the idea that elements might be “endangered” and the solution lies in new innovations in chemistry (8). Supply risks for elements are dynamic issues based on geopolitics, technology demands and trends, environmental impact, and economics, but elements will be kept in the economy through clever chemistry (9). Following the production of a periodic table of endangered elements, the message started to gain traction and featured in an exhibit at the Design Museum in 2009. In 2010/11, the UK Government’s Science and Technology Committee looked into the issue of Strategically Important Metals (10), and an article from Chemistry World (11) was used to brief the minister, David Willetts. The Government response was a Resource Security Action Plan (12). The RSC went on to include supply risk as a factor on its Visual Elements Periodic Table (13), using data supplied by the British Geological Survey (14). Endangered Elements were the topic of a recent BBC Radio Wales Science Cafe programme. The Technology Strategy Board (who fund CIKTN) supported a special interest group on Materials Security (15) in 2011, which looked in detail at the innovation opportunities arising from supply risk of key resources. Which chemical technologies will rise to the top? Extending the life of materials lies in understanding mechanisms of material failure and will need solutions such as protective coatings and self-healing materials. Recycling is driven by separations science and improvements in metallurgy and alloying. Remanufacturing and reuse of components requires low energy processes for regeneration of parts and one of manufacture using techniques such as 3D printing. Substituting materials needs a deep understanding of structure property relationships to rationally design new materials that deliver the same effects. Chemistry is also vital to exploiting natural, renewable materials. Even extraction of virgin materials will improve with better chemistry for extracting the precious resources we need to thrive as a society.